The use of cold sea water for carrying out cooling and air conditioning in island and coastal areas is, in general, well known. However, existing procedures for this purpose involve unnecessary inefficiencies and costs. The present invention is directed to new and improved systems and procedures which not only provide the desired cooling and air conditioning but also enable significantly greater efficiencies in related electrical energy generation, thus reducing the effective overall costs of air conditioning and power generation as compared to existing procedures, and thus rendering the basic sea water cooling concepts much more attractive and economically justified.